In 'Brooklyn,' Saoirse Ronan's art imitates life
Accomplished actress getting Oscar buzz for her role as an Irish immigrant coming to America
SAOIRSE RONAN was looking for a specific kind of role.
She wanted something that would continue her transition from child actress to adult - "it's a transition everyone has to make when you start out young," she said - and she wanted to play an Irish person.
After years, speaking in all types of accents, Ronan wanted to hear her own voice.
And that's what led this lass born in the Bronx but raised in Ireland, to "Brooklyn."
Speaking in September at the Toronto International Film Festival, Ronan said the role of Eilis (pronounced Ailish), who leaves her Irish homeland for a better life in America, also had another important, relateable aspect. She was 19 at the time and thinking of moving away from home, playing someone of a comparable age uprooting her own life.
"I experienced that homesickness," Ronan said. "At times I had to leave the set because it was too personal. I talked to my mum every night. By the end [of shooting] it was like we had all run a marathon together."
Although she's been acting professionally more than a dozen years, and a presence in movies with roles in 2007's "Atonement," 2009's "The Lovely Bones" (shot in part in this area) and 2011's "Hanna," Ronan has stayed out of the limelight and the tabloids.
She says it's partly because none of her films were overly commercial and she never got a lot of exposure, but it's also because of her parents.
"Their mentality is very down-to-earth, very realistic," Ronan said. "And nothing really phases my mum."
"Brooklyn" director John Crowley is more emphatic.
"Have you met her mother Monica?" he asked. "A great woman. A force of nature. No bulls--t there."
And there's no BS with Saoirse, who said of her roles, "If I say yes to a script it's because I love it and believe in it."
Next up for the now 21-year-old actress are roles as Marguerite Gachet in "Loving Vincent," about the artist Vincent Van Gogh, and Nina in a movie adaptation of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull."
Next spring she'll make her Broadway debut as Abigail Williams in a revival of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" with Ciaran Hinds, Ben Whishaw and Sophie Okonedo.
"I'm really terrified, but I'm looking forward to it," Ronan said.